Hope And Uncertainty In Contemporary African Migration

This volume examines the relationship between hope, mobility, and immobility in African migration. Through case studies set within and beyond the continent, it demonstrates that hope offers a unique prism for analyzing the social imaginaries and aspirations which underpin migration in situations of uncertainty, deepening inequality, and delimited access to global circuits of legal mobility. The volume takes departure in a mobility paradox that characterizes contemporary migration. Whereas people all over the world are exposed to widening sets of meaning of the good life elsewhere, an increasing number of people in the Global South have little or no access to authorized modes of international migration. This book examines how African migrants respond to this situation. Focusing on hope, it explores migrants’ temporal and spatial horizons of expectation and possibility and how these horizons link to mobility practices. Such analysis is pertinent as precarious life conditions and increasingly restrictive regimes of mobility characterize the lives of many Africans, while migration continues to constitute important livelihood strategies and to be seen as pathways of improvement. Whereas involuntary immobility is one consequence, another is the emergence and consolidation of new destinations emerging in the Global South. The volume examines this development through empirically grounded and theoretically rich case studies in migrants’ countries of origin, zones of transit, and in new and established destinations in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Latin America and China. It thereby offers an original perspective on linkages between migration, hope, and immobility, ranging from migration aspirations to return.

An essential collection of scholarly essays on the anthropology of Africa, offering a thorough introduction to the most important topics in this evolving and diverse field of study The study of the cultures of Africa has been central to the methodological and theoretical development of anthropology as a discipline since the late 19th-century. As the anthropology of Africa has emerged as a distinct field of study, anthropologists working in this tradition have strived to build a disciplinary conversation that recognizes the diversity and complexity of modern and ancient African cultures while acknowledging the effects of historical anthropology on the present and future of the field of study. A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa is a collection of insightful essays covering the key questions and subjects in the contemporary anthropology of Africa with a key focus on addressing the topics that define the contemporary discipline. Written and edited by a team of leading cultural anthropologists, it is an ideal introduction to the most important topics in the field, both those that have consistently been a part of the critical dialogue and those that have emerged as the central questions of the discipline’s future. Beginning with essays on the enduring topics in the study of African cultures, A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa provides a foundation in the contemporary critical approach to subjects of longstanding interest. With these subjects as a groundwork, later essays address decolonization, the postcolonial experience, and questions of modern identity and definition, providing representation of the diverse thinking and scholarship in the modern anthropology of Africa.

This book offers a socio-historical analysis of migration and the possibilities of regional integration in Southern Africa. It examines both the historical roots of and contemporary challenges regarding the social, economic, and geo-political causes of migration and its consequences (i.e. xenophobia) to illustrate how ‘diaspora’ migrations have shaped a sense of identity, citizenry, and belonging in the region. By discussing immigration policies and processes and highlighting how the struggle for belonging is mediated by new pressures concerning economic security, social inequality, and globalist challenges, the book develops policy responses to the challenge of social and economic exclusion, as well as xenophobic violence, in Southern Africa. This timely and highly informative book will appeal to all scholars, activists, and policy-makers looking to revisit migration policies and realign them with current globalization and regional integration trends.

Moving away from state categorizations on irregular migration, this Research Handbook critically examines processes and dynamics that generate and reproduce irregularity, and discusses who may count as an irregular migrant.

Since 2000, IOM has been producing world migration reports. The World Migration Report 2020, the tenth in the world migration report series, has been produced to contribute to increased understanding of migration throughout the world. This new edition presents key data and information on migration as well as thematic chapters on highly topical migration issues, and is structured to focus on two key contributions for readers: Part I: key information on migration and migrants (including migration-related statistics); and Part II: balanced, evidence-based analysis of complex and emerging migration issues.

This handbook provides an authoritative multidisciplinary overview of contemporary African international migration. It endeavours to present a single source of reference on issues such as migration history, trends, migrant profiles, narratives, migration-development nexus, migration governance, diasporas, impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. The handbook assembles a multidisciplinary contributor team of distinguished and upcoming Africanist scholars, practitioners, researchers, and policy experts both inside and outside Africa to contribute their perspectives on contemporary African migration. It attempts to address some of the following pertinent questions: What drives contemporary migration in Africa? How are its patterns and trends evolving? What is the architecture of migration governance in Africa? How do migration, diaspora engagement and development play out in Africa? What are the future trajectories of African migration? The handbook is a valuable resource for practitioners, politicians, researchers, university students, and academics interested in studying and understanding contemporary African migration.

South Africa, by Christian M. Rogerson

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible represents a comprehensive resource for researchers and practitioners interested in an emerging multidisciplinary area within psychology and the social sciences: the study of how we engage with and cultivate the possible within self, society and culture. Far from being opposed either to the actual or the real, the possible engages with concrete facts and experiences, with the result of transforming them. This encyclopedia examines the notion of the possible and the concepts associated with it from standpoints within psychology, philosophy, sociology, neuroscience and logic, as well as multidisciplinary fields of research including anticipation studies, future studies, complexity theory and creativity research. Presenting multiple perspectives on the possible, the authors consider the distinct social, cultural and psychological processes - e.g., imagination, counterfactual thinking, wonder, play, inspiration, and many others - that define our engagement with new possibilities in domains as diverse as the arts, design and business.